# Victory Stele of Naram-Sin
The Victory Stele of Naram-Sin is a pink-beige limestone bas-relief monument of Naram-Sin, king of Akkad, commemorating his victory over the Lullubi, a mountain people of the central Zagros.[1](https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010123450) • [2](https://web.archive.org/web/20121117014831/http:/www.louvre.fr:80/en/oeuvre-notices/victory-stele-naram-sin) Triangular in shape and cataloged in the Louvre as Sb 4, it was carried off from Sippar to Susa by the Elamite king [Shutruk-Nahhunte](https://www.edgepedia.org/shutruk-nahhunte) in the 12th century BC and recovered there by French excavation in 1898.[1](https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010123450) • [2](https://web.archive.org/web/20121117014831/http:/www.louvre.fr:80/en/oeuvre-notices/victory-stele-naram-sin) • [3](https://www.worldhistory.org/Naram-Sin/) It shows the king, wearing the horned crown of a god, ascending a mountain above his marching troops and his defeated enemies.[3](https://www.worldhistory.org/Naram-Sin/)
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Object | Triangular bas-relief stele in pink and beige limestone, Louvre Sb 4[1](https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010123450) |
| Dimensions | 200 cm high, 105 cm wide, 27 cm thick[1](https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010123450) |
| Date | Reign of Naram-Sin, c. 2254–2218 BC on the Louvre's chronology[1](https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010123450) • [2](https://web.archive.org/web/20121117014831/http:/www.louvre.fr:80/en/oeuvre-notices/victory-stele-naram-sin) |
| Inscriptions | Fragmentary Akkadian victory text (RIME 2.01.04.31) plus a later Elamite inscription of Shutruk-Nahhunte[4](https://cdli.earth/artifacts/462029) • [1](https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010123450) |
| Subject | Victory over the Lullubi mountain people; the Louvre names their king Satuni[2](https://web.archive.org/web/20121117014831/http:/www.louvre.fr:80/en/oeuvre-notices/victory-stele-naram-sin) |
| Provenance | Originally erected at Sippar (per Shutruk-Nahhunte); found at the Susa acropolis on 6 April 1898[1](https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010123450) |
| Location | Louvre Museum, Paris[3](https://www.worldhistory.org/Naram-Sin/) |
## The object and its imagery
The stele measures 200 cm in height, 105 cm in width, and 27 cm in thickness, carved in pink and beige limestone in bas-relief.[1](https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010123450) Its surface is worn; of the original Akkadian inscription only traces remain.[5](https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/entities/anuarchivesitem/7fb225b5-915b-450f-8ea6-062e942e170b/full)
The carving is organized as a single climbing scene. Naram-Sin crowns the composition, considerably taller than his followers and the defeated enemy, his divinity indicated by the horns on his helmet.[5](https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/entities/anuarchivesitem/7fb225b5-915b-450f-8ea6-062e942e170b/full) Above him rise three solar disks.[1](https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010123450) Below, Akkadian soldiers climb the slope in order: some bearded, some beardless, equipped with helmets, axes, bows, picks, and standards.[1](https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010123450) The enemy Lullubi are depicted differently: pointed beards, long "pony-tail" hair, and hide clothing contrast with the helmeted Akkadian warriors.[5](https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/entities/anuarchivesitem/7fb225b5-915b-450f-8ea6-062e942e170b/full)
The composition broke with register-based convention. Earlier Mesopotamian monuments framed their scenes in horizontal bands; the sculptor of this stele arranged the figures instead in diagonal tiers rising up the mountainside, giving the whole surface a unified, dynamic movement toward the king at the summit.[2](https://web.archive.org/web/20121117014831/http:/www.louvre.fr:80/en/oeuvre-notices/victory-stele-naram-sin) • [6](https://smarthistory.org/victory-stele-of-naram-sin/) For a royal victory monument this was a first.[2](https://web.archive.org/web/20121117014831/http:/www.louvre.fr:80/en/oeuvre-notices/victory-stele-naram-sin)
## The inscriptions
Two texts, written roughly a thousand years apart, share the stone.
The Akkadian inscription above the king is very fragmentary. After the royal titulary it records victories over the Lullubi and closes with a dedication, probably to the sun god Shamash.[1](https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010123450) The composite edition, RIME 2.01.04.31 in the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative, opens with the king's name written with the divine determinative, the cuneiform sign marking a god's name.[4](https://cdli.earth/artifacts/462029) The surviving lines name Sidur-x (an incomplete personal name) and the mountain people of Lullubum as having "assembled together" for battle, and record that a burial mound was heaped up over them; the text then turns to a dedication to a god.[4](https://cdli.earth/artifacts/462029)
The second inscription, cut into the mountain in the relief itself, is in Elamite and belongs to Shutruk-Nahhunte, the 12th-century BC king of Elam. It states that he carried the stele off from Sippar.[1](https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010123450)
## Historical context: Naram-Sin, the Lullubi and divine kingship
The stele belongs to the Akkadian empire founded by Sargon, whose expansionist policies created the first great empire in [Mesopotamia](https://www.edgepedia.org/mesopotamia); the Oxford handbook chapter on the stele describes it as casting that imperialist ideology in stone.[7](https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190901080.003.0002) Naram-Sin's title was "King of the Four Regions", a claim to universal rule, and his official inscriptions began preceding his name with the divine determinative while he adopted the horned helmet traditionally the privilege of the gods.[2](https://web.archive.org/web/20121117014831/http:/www.louvre.fr:80/en/oeuvre-notices/victory-stele-naram-sin)
The Lullubi were the people of the eastern mountains, in the central Zagros.[2](https://web.archive.org/web/20121117014831/http:/www.louvre.fr:80/en/oeuvre-notices/victory-stele-naram-sin) • [5](https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/entities/anuarchivesitem/7fb225b5-915b-450f-8ea6-062e942e170b/full) The Louvre's archived notice commemorates a victory over [Satuni](https://www.edgepedia.org/satuni), king of the Lullubi,[2](https://web.archive.org/web/20121117014831/http:/www.louvre.fr:80/en/oeuvre-notices/victory-stele-naram-sin) while the surviving inscription traces mention only "a prince of Lulubi",[5](https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/entities/anuarchivesitem/7fb225b5-915b-450f-8ea6-062e942e170b/full) and the name Satuni does not appear in the surviving text edition, which gives Sidur-x and the people of Lullubum.[4](https://cdli.earth/artifacts/462029)
Recent scholarship has returned to the question of the king's divinity. A recent re-examination argues that the first formal instance of divine kingship appeared in the Old Akkadian period with Naram-Sin, whom it dates to approximately 2261–2206 BCE, and examines the political processes behind the claim to divinity, its nature, objectives, and impact on later Mesopotamian political tradition.[8](https://www.magiran.com/paper/2886175/naram-sin-s-divinity-a-re-examination?lang=en)
## From Sippar to Susa: the stele's biography
According to Shutruk-Nahhunte's own Elamite inscription, the stele originally stood at Sippar in [Babylonia](https://www.edgepedia.org/babylonia). After taking Sippar he brought King Naram-Sin's stele home with him to be dedicated to his god Inshushinak.[1](https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010123450) • [5](https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/entities/anuarchivesitem/7fb225b5-915b-450f-8ea6-062e942e170b/full) Smarthistory dates the removal to the 12th century BC, roughly a thousand years after the stele was made, when Shutruk-Nahhunte attacked Babylon.[6](https://smarthistory.org/victory-stele-of-naram-sin/)
The French excavations at Susa brought it back to light. The Louvre records its discovery at the Susa acropolis on 6 April 1898 during Jacques de Morgan's excavations, with the object entering the museum by the division of finds (partage).[1](https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010123450)
## Dating and chronology
The Louvre dates the stele to the reign of Naram-Sin, c. 2250 BC, with reign dates of 2254–2218 BC.[1](https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010123450) These dates rest on the Sumerian king list, which states that Naram-Sin reigned thirty-six years.[2](https://web.archive.org/web/20121117014831/http:/www.louvre.fr:80/en/oeuvre-notices/victory-stele-naram-sin) The Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative dates the text more broadly to the Old Akkadian period, ca. 2340–2200 BC, with provenience Susa (modern Shush).[4](https://cdli.earth/artifacts/462029)
Other chronologies are in circulation. The re-examination of Naram-Sin's divinity dates his reign to approximately 2261–2206 BCE.[8](https://www.magiran.com/paper/2886175/naram-sin-s-divinity-a-re-examination?lang=en)
## Comparison with earlier victory monuments
The clearest comparison is with the Stele of the Vultures of Eannatum of Lagash, which also stands in the Louvre. Both depict a victorious ruler over defeated enemies, but they belong to different worlds: the Vultures stele is Early Dynastic III and shows Eannatum's victory over neighboring Umma, while the Naram-Sin stele dates to the subsequent Akkadian period.[9](https://www.academia.edu/22422789/The_Stele_of_Naram_Sin_and_the_Stele_of_the_Vultures_an_ontological_comparison) The Vultures stele, dating to ca. 2460 BC, documents in text and image a battle between Lagash and Umma arising from long-standing disputes over land- and water-rights.
Two contrasts stand out. First, the earlier monument divides its surface into registers, while the Naram-Sin stele abandons registers for a unified diagonal composition climbing the mountain.[2](https://web.archive.org/web/20121117014831/http:/www.louvre.fr:80/en/oeuvre-notices/victory-stele-naram-sin) Second, on the obverse of the Vultures stele it is the god Ningirsu, chief god of Lagash, who holds the battle-net filled with defeated enemies, an attribute the text associates only with gods; on the Naram-Sin stele the king himself, in divine headgear, occupies that victorious position. The earlier monument shows the god winning; the later one shows a king who claims divinity winning.[2](https://web.archive.org/web/20121117014831/http:/www.louvre.fr:80/en/oeuvre-notices/victory-stele-naram-sin)
A closely related work survives without inscription: a victory relief at Darband-i-Gaur in [Kurdistan](https://www.edgepedia.org/kurdistan) shows the same iconography, but it cannot be confirmed that it refers to the same victory.[5](https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/entities/anuarchivesitem/7fb225b5-915b-450f-8ea6-062e942e170b/full)
## References
1. [Stèle de Naram-Sin, Louvre site des collections](https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010123450)
2. [Victory Stele of Naram-Sin | Louvre Museum (archived notice)](https://web.archive.org/web/20121117014831/http:/www.louvre.fr:80/en/oeuvre-notices/victory-stele-naram-sin)
3. [Naram-Sin, World History Encyclopedia](https://www.worldhistory.org/Naram-Sin/)
4. [RIME 2.01.04.31 (Victory Stele) composite (P462029), Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative](https://cdli.earth/artifacts/462029)
5. [Susa (Imperial Akkadian, Phase III), Acropolis: Stele of Victory for Naram-Sin (Strommenger record), ANU Open Research Repository](https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/entities/anuarchivesitem/7fb225b5-915b-450f-8ea6-062e942e170b/full)
6. [Victory Stele of Naram-Sin, Smarthistory](https://smarthistory.org/victory-stele-of-naram-sin/)
7. [The Victory Stele of Naram-Sîn, Oxford University Press chapter](https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190901080.003.0002)
8. [Naram-Sin's Divinity: A Re-examination, Magiran](https://www.magiran.com/paper/2886175/naram-sin-s-divinity-a-re-examination?lang=en)
9. [The Stele of Naram Sin and the Stele of the Vultures: an ontological comparison, Academia.edu](https://www.academia.edu/22422789/The_Stele_of_Naram_Sin_and_the_Stele_of_the_Vultures_an_ontological_comparison)
---
*Topic: Encyclopedia › Society and history › History and archaeology › Periods and civilizations › Ancient Near East, Egypt, Nubia, and the Punic world › Ancient Mesopotamia › Akkadian Empire, Gutians, Lagash II, and Ur III › Akkadian Empire, Gutians, Lagash II, and Ur III: texts, inscriptions, and institutions*
*Initially written Sep 19, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 19, 2026 · Edited: Oct 11, 2026 · Last review: Sep 19, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license